I’m president of the Galen Institute, a non-profit research organization that focuses on market-driven health policy, and a co-author of Why ObamaCare Is Wrong for America (Broadside/HarperCollins, 2011)

ObamaCare: If Possible, The News Is Getting Worse

ObamaCare is taking on water as we head into the second anniversary since it passed, and the news about the president’s signature legislation gets worse by the day.

To mark the law’s two-year anniversary, the House of Representatives is planning a vote to repeal one of the law’s most unpopular provisions — the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), which many seniors fear will become Medicare’s rationing board.

A few days later, the Supreme Court will hear a remarkable six hours of oral argument in the case with 26 states challenging the law’s constitutionality. Demonstrators will fill the streets outside the Supreme Court during the three days of hearings March 26-28.

For much of the last year, the White House had adopted a “strategy of silence” on ObamaCare. That’s clearly over.

After the 2010 election drubbing, the president rarely talked about his signature legislative achievement and even when he did, he only spoke about the small early provisions — 26-year-old children on their parents’ insurance, “free” preventive care, and more help for seniors with their drug costs.

For a while, the strategy was working. ObamaCare has died down as a major issue. The House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to repeal the law a year ago, and, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation poll, about half of those polled afterward thought the law has been repealed or weren’t sure. The confusion — and the lack of their basic knowledge of civics — suited the White House just fine.

But ObamaCare is back to center stage this month, and the more people learn about the law, the more unpopular it becomes. Here are just some of the recent revelations:

· Soaring costs. ObamaCare will cost $1.76 trillion over a decade, according to a new projection released Tuesday by the Congressional Budget Office, rather than the $940 billion forecast when it was signed into law.

The new 10-year projections cover nine years of ObamaCare’s implementation (2013-2022). Original estimates counted only six years of implementation — a budget gimmick to obscure the true cost of the law. At this rate, the conservative estimates of ObamaCare’s cost will be $2 trillion over 10 years, not the $1 trillion that President Obama promised.

· Lost coverage. Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY) released a statement saying that the CBO’s estimate also shows that the new health law will dramatically increase Medicaid spending and result in 4 million fewer people getting health insurance through their jobs. So much for being able to keep the coverage you have now “no matter what,” as the president promised.

· Opposition locked in. An AP-GfK poll taken early this month shows that only about a third of Americans (35 percent) support the health care law, while nearly half (47 percent) oppose it. That’s about the same split as when it passed.

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